China: the largest health system in the world rejects the free market

Beijing presented a wide plan to reform its health system with an ambitious goal: basic coverage for rural and urban population by 2020. The government presented its reform on the internet to launch a public debate and invited people to express themselves about this plan by November 14. In addition to the statutory monitoring which should start soon, Planet Labor is launching, with this dispatch, a regular column on social evolutions in the Middle Kingdom. (Ref. 080854)
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Since October 14 and until November 14, Chinese people are invited to express themselves on the internet about the new health plan. The State Commission for Development and Reform published the outcome of two years of studies carried out by researchers and Ministries. The project is huge. The first goal is to create a health system which will cover the entire population by 2020. For now, the coverage offered by the communist system is very unfair. “China is a country where they know how to treat, with skilled personnel, hospitals with technical resources and equipment which widely match the European level, but only in large cities and only for the wealthiest” said Jean-Charles Dehaye, who has been following this reform closely since he is the head of the Sino-European project on social security in china.

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